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Lynx Blue Line (South Corridor)

monsoon

By monsoon
in Charlotte

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southslider Town

southslider

Posted
Posted

I'd agree that the signal-spacing on this section of South Boulevard is less than ideal. But luckily, I've heard that there will be signal pre-emption. Most other cities use signal prioritization (and often use only signals without crossing gates), having trains stop at red lights. But with signal pre-emption, an errant motorist blocking the tracks would seem to lengthen the red for cross-traffic as long as it takes the train to get through, but parallel, non-turning South Boulevard traffic would ironically get a longer green in such situation.

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soccer1guy_99 Unincorporated Area

soccer1guy_99

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You cannot really compare the Houston design with the Charlotte design. If you look at this

you will see that these accidents occurred where the train is running at grade along city streets. These accidents happened where there were no crossing arms. Charlotte may have accidents, but the design is not comparable to the Houston line which was a disaster. I have not heard of any accidents during testing in Charlotte, while Houston had many accidents before the line was operational.
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Raintree21 Town

Raintree21

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From what I could see, almost all of those wrecks occurred when the automobile was making an illegal turn. We are going to have people all the time not following the law when it comes to stopping behind the line, going around crossing arms, etc. I assume that the same law will apply to this as they do for regular freight and passenger trains. If you get hit, it's your fault.

I'd say the reason there hasn't been any testing is because everytime I've seen trains coming through, there have been transit workers with orange vests and flags at the crossing as extra safety to keep people away.

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Andyc545 Burg

Andyc545

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From what I could see, almost all of those wrecks occurred when the automobile was making an illegal turn. We are going to have people all the time not following the law when it comes to stopping behind the line, going around crossing arms, etc. I assume that the same law will apply to this as they do for regular freight and passenger trains. If you get hit, it's your fault.

I'd say the reason there hasn't been any testing is because everytime I've seen trains coming through, there have been transit workers with orange vests and flags at the crossing as extra safety to keep people away.

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Spartan Gigalopolis

Spartan

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I don't think we'll see longer train sets or extended stations to accomodate that situation for the foolwing reasons:

1- Too Expensive

2- Not enough land

3- Stations on flyovers can't be extended.

4- More important fact: Light Rail is designed to have short trains and short distances between stops.

The most likely scenario if that you'd see a higher frequency of trains to accommodate volume. If for some reason that can't handle the volume, Charlotte would seriously need to look at some other alternatives (maybe heavy rail). But I don't think it will be an issue in the foreseeable future though. Charlotte simply doesn't have the population or density to make that happen yet.

I'd agree that the signal-spacing on this section of South Boulevard is less than ideal. But luckily, I've heard that there will be signal pre-emption. Most other cities use signal prioritization (and often use only signals without crossing gates), having trains stop at red lights. But with signal pre-emption, an errant motorist blocking the tracks would seem to lengthen the red for cross-traffic as long as it takes the train to get through, but parallel, non-turning South Boulevard traffic would ironically get a longer green in such situation.
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soccer1guy_99 Unincorporated Area

soccer1guy_99

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I just did. I did say the accidents where caused by badly designed crossings that increased the likelyhood of inattentive drivers causing an accident. This is the case in Houston, and I believe it to be the case with the Scaleybark station. Train and road crossings are always dangerous and why CATS felt that it was OK to put 5 of them at one station really boggles the mind given the experience that we have in Houston.
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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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On the earlier discussion that we had on station design, that is the lack of functional design of Charlotte's light rail stations, it seems to me that Houston, which uses the same trains that we have here in Charlotte, did an excellent job in comparison.

img_28441.jpg

From nycsubway.org

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Mobuchu Burg

Mobuchu

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CATS gave some updates on the South line in this Observer article.

Their best time from end to end, with stopping, is 21 minutes, but will likely be 25-26 minutes. Trains will stop at every station once operating even if there are no passengers, but for no more then 20 seconds. They also added that they have the ability to run the trains every 5 minutes if demand warrants it.

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Andyc545 Burg

Andyc545

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The CATs Website has updated a page for the LYNX now that they are beginning to advertise for it and about to open it.

http://www.charmeck.org/Departments/CATS/LYNX/home.htm

There's some resourceful information on there, including Public Art, Schedules, etc. They also added clcikable stations to get info, pictures of the station, etc. I just wish the map was bigger so you could actually read it and click the correct stations. Check it out, looks pretty decent.

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Raintree21 Town

Raintree21

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They are only going to run until 1:00 AM, even on Fridays and Saturdays. I wonder if they will consider opening it till 2:30-ish to allow the bar patrons a ride home.

On the webpage, it says no cash allowed but I thought CATS made an announcement that credit cards were not going to be taken for the first few weeks due to computer problems. So which is it going to be? Also, if they don't allow cash, what about the people that may not have credit? This line is supposed to be for ALL class levels so I would think that they would not say no to cash.

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uptownliving Town

uptownliving

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They are only going to run until 1:00 AM, even on Fridays and Saturdays. I wonder if they will consider opening it till 2:30-ish to allow the bar patrons a ride home.

On the webpage, it says no cash allowed but I thought CATS made an announcement that credit cards were not going to be taken for the first few weeks due to computer problems. So which is it going to be? Also, if they don't allow cash, what about the people that may not have credit? This line is supposed to be for ALL class levels so I would think that they would not say no to cash.

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Mobuchu Burg

Mobuchu

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If service on the trains will run until 1:00am, then the one day pass needs to run until 1:30am. Right now, it expires at midnight the day you buy the ticket. Not convenient if you are making a round trip and coming home after midnight. One day pass should be valid from 5:30am until 2am that night. Also, 4$ is a little steep for one day. You would have to ride 4 times that day for the pass to be worth it. I dont see this being a popular ticket.

Hopefully someone at CATS is reading this because the wording behind the "no cash accepted on LYNX" is going to be confusing, especially if no credit cards will be accepted for the first month or two.

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dubone Megalopolis

dubone

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One day passes are often for tourists, who are expecting to ride multiple places within the day. Generally speaking, you're going to buy a longer pass if you are a resident of the city and will ride regularly. If it is a random trip, you'll buy a single fare. It is not a big market for people who know they will ride a lot in one day and not another.

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Justadude Burg

Justadude

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Based on one-day passes I've bought while visiting other cities, $4 seems fair IF it includes bus transfers. Does this one include transfers? The real downside to the day pass here is that there is only one line, so you really can't use it to move around the city much (obviously this will improve as other lines are completed).

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cinco Burg

cinco

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Gee. It sounds to me as if the socially responsible thing to do would be not to get so drunk in public. It costs a lot of money to keep the trains operating and it doesn't make sense to the taxpayers to keep employees on the clock, and the trains on the tracks this late at night just to pick up a few people too drunk to drive. This is why they have taxi cabs.
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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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The trains stop running in Tokyo at 1am despite the fact the clubs there don't close until 5 or 6 am, if at all. People learn to get on them by then, or stay in a capsule hotel, or if you have to, pay an outrageous rate to get onto a cab. (the music is the departure melody of each train line)

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